I hate it when people tell me they "get migraines too!" when they don't. "Oh, but just take a couple Advil and you'll be fine!" I could have smacked that lady but I was too busy trying not to vomit all over the drug store counter from the spinning.

Eating poorly and lack of sleep seem to trigger mine. IF I can get myself to bed when i feel one coming on they usually aren't too bad for whatever reason, just the sound and light sensitivity and mild diziness along with almost bearable pain. OTOH if I try to fight through them and stay awake it's a mother farker with spots in my vision, vomiting - the full works.

In my 20's I got them a lot but now it's usually only every couple months. I attribute that to less drinking and better eating and sleeping habits.

My mother has them worse. Chocolate is big trigger for her, as is alcohol.

The tone of this article sickens me, because it's the exact same tone I'd use when pretending to be overly serious about some dumb bullshiat on a lark. So either the writer is doing satire poorly, or they actually believe what they're writing and that's scary.

My mom's side of the family has been getting migraines for generations now. At least 4 that I know of, including me. Mine usually involve an incredibly sore left side of the back of my neck, and incredible pain behind my left eye. But they can and do get a lot worse than that.If I can catch it soon enough, a Fioricet or two will kill it.if not, I need an Imitrex. But that also knocks me the hell out. If I need to take an imitrex for my migraine, I'm pretty much done for the day.

over the years, different places i worked there were some people who would suffer horrible migraines. my honest observation: happened to the worst people. people that were always nasty, back stabbers, adulterers, you name it. i had no sympathy. i'm not saying this about you or your loved one who suffers from this terrible thing. i'm just saying, in the workplace i saw a whole lot of people get them that almost seemed to deserve them. i don't mean to offend anyone with my life observation.

Yea... that and mushrooms. Despite the fact that both are easily available I just cannot bring myself to try it out when I have a migraine. The thought of being trapped in a psychedelic migraine hell is just too much.. I already pray for death when I have a migraine.

KrispyKritter:over the years, different places i worked there were some people who would suffer horrible migraines. my honest observation: happened to the worst people. people that were always nasty, back stabbers, adulterers, you name it. i had no sympathy. i'm not saying this about you or your loved one who suffers from this terrible thing. i'm just saying, in the workplace i saw a whole lot of people get them that almost seemed to deserve them. i don't mean to offend anyone with my life observation.

If only that were the case! If a simple complete lifestyle change would be all it takes to make them go away, I'd be all for it.

Sadly, the best I can do is avoid certain lighting situations, like trying to read through a reflection.

/one of the most comforting things in the Universe is that people don't always get what they deserve

enik:You could apply a list like that to any chronic sickness people suffer from. I get stupid comments like those all the time when dealing with asthma.

Except that people recognize asthma as an actual affliction, while they still think migraines are "just headaches", and since we've all had headaches and lived through them, they pretty much act like migraine sufferers are just making it all up at the worst, or at the least are massive drama queens...

Fabric_Man:The best thing to say is nothing. Just gently usher them into a dark, quiet room with their medicine (if any), and let them ride it out.

THIS

If I can have access to a quiet, darkened room I can usually sleep off a migraine & feel recovered enough to function normally the next day.

I had a boss that didn't seem to understand how the bright overhead lights at work would make my migraine bad enough that I was pretty much guaranteed a visit to the ER for uncontrollable vomiting on top of a migraine that lasted for at least three day. Which of course meant I missed more work than if she had just allowed me to go home for the rest of the day.

Mikey1969:Except that people recognize asthma as an actual affliction, while they still think migraines are "just headaches", and since we've all had headaches and lived through them, they pretty much act like migraine sufferers are just making it all up at the worst, or at the least are massive drama queens...

Which is why there's a push to stop calling them "migraine headaches".

I'd like to say that they're closer to siezures than headaches, because there's a whole lot of misfiring going on, but at the same time, I don't, because I want to keep my driver's license. I'm not willing to lose my career over semantics.

Forty-Two:The weirdest migraine I had occurred while I was teaching a writing class. I couldn't see things in the center of my field of vision (previous migraines had affected my peripheral vision). The brain does its best to compensate for things it can't see, but when I needed actual details from the blind spots (like, words on a page), my brain couldn't supply the answers. I called on students to read things off the overhead (since I could no longer read them), then I ended class slightly early. I hadn't experienced a migraine in about 5 years, but fortunately I recognized the bizarre symptoms. I consider myself lucky that migraines don't manifest with pain for me, but they're definitely debilitating.

/Migraines are weird and manifest differently for different people.

Sounds like that might have been an ocular migraine. They tend to be either pain free or the pain isn't all that severe. Have you ever gotten them where you get the zig-zag patterns in your visual field?

Kind of like the above. First time I had one of those it scared the crap out of me because I'd never heard of ocular migraines & had no idea what was happening.

Mikey1969:enik: You could apply a list like that to any chronic sickness people suffer from. I get stupid comments like those all the time when dealing with asthma.

Except that people recognize asthma as an actual affliction, while they still think migraines are "just headaches", and since we've all had headaches and lived through them, they pretty much act like migraine sufferers are just making it all up at the worst, or at the least are massive drama queens...

I'm glad that in my case, everyone important in my life has seen me get migraines to the point of vomiting and tremors. Now when I tell them, they believe me.

/Never have met a person who had migraines who also wasn't also a caffeine and/or soda addict.

Not me. A couple of years ago I was getting migraines because of out-of-control blood pressure caused by kidney failure. After a month of having a migraine every day, I couldn't stop vomiting and Mrs Clam took me to the ER. You get your own room really fast when your blood pressure is 245/138.

/Never have met a person who had migraines who also wasn't also a caffeine and/or soda addict.

i don't know anything about medicine, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that caffeine helps migraine sufferers. it helps absolutely everything else.

/ increases breathing and blood flow. also good for people who are having trouble breathing.

Migraines run in my family, so I can say a little about this. Caffeine helps migraines on a short-term basis, but as HotIgneous Intruder implied, caffeine also makes it worse. There is a strong boomerang effect with caffeine and migraines, and when I had them, I learned quickly that the one day of feeling ok was not worth the 3 or 4 days of feeling like shiat that I would get after caffeine intake. Eventually I got to a neurologist and got some good meds, and I've largely outgrown them since then. Still, I have BAD memories of the year or two I suffered through without telling anyone.

My mother suffers from chronic cluster headaches. As a result and until the start of this year, I've had to help care for her for over fifteen years. When people hear she has cluster headaches, there is sympathy, but people always want to mention having migraines and therefore having some experience with this. But I understand the need to relate and lack of knowledge about the condition. What I cannot stand is the apparent dismissiveness some folks have towards this. A migraine once a year is nothing, and when you come into work complaining of a migraine but mean a bad headache I want to hit you.

Migraine, especially chronic Migraine is one of the worst kinds of pain there is, and is often undertreated enough to cause disability to the patient.

One of, but the above has been considered the worst in the medical field. Not taking anything away from sufferers of chronic migraines which are disabling, just laying some perspective.

/Never have met a person who had migraines who also wasn't also a caffeine and/or soda addict.

Scratch that record. You just met me

My mom and oldest aunt get them, and neither one drinks anything caffeinated.

I think I'm the only male in my family who gets 'em. Joy.

/i think only one of the girls doesn't

My son started getting migraines when he was 8-years old. The first time he had one I didn't realize it was a migraine until he started vomiting uncontrollably on top of the severe headache. I had been sadly misinformed years before in my youth that children do not get migraines, even though it was obvious as I got older that the childhood headaches were indeed migraines. Over time I've figured out what were at least some of the triggers for myself, my son, not so much. He's an adult now, but still gets them so randomly and rarely that it's difficult to figure out what triggers them.

Psylence:Mikey1969: enik: You could apply a list like that to any chronic sickness people suffer from. I get stupid comments like those all the time when dealing with asthma.

Except that people recognize asthma as an actual affliction, while they still think migraines are "just headaches", and since we've all had headaches and lived through them, they pretty much act like migraine sufferers are just making it all up at the worst, or at the least are massive drama queens...

I'm glad that in my case, everyone important in my life has seen me get migraines to the point of vomiting and tremors. Now when I tell them, they believe me.

I had my first (that I can recall) in pre-school. By the time I got home I was puking up all my lunch. I was lucky in that my mother also suffered them all her life, and when I told her my head hurt, and she saw how wrecked I was, she believed me. She had to tell off more than one teacher who would say shiat like "Oh, it's all in her head..." and "She's too young to get migraines..."

She would let me sleep in her bedroom (darkest room/heaviest curtains), and concentrating on the ticking of her old-fashioned alarm clock helped. It was kind of hypnotic.

Bathia_Mapes:Forty-Two: The weirdest migraine I had occurred while I was teaching a writing class. I couldn't see things in the center of my field of vision (previous migraines had affected my peripheral vision). The brain does its best to compensate for things it can't see, but when I needed actual details from the blind spots (like, words on a page), my brain couldn't supply the answers. I called on students to read things off the overhead (since I could no longer read them), then I ended class slightly early. I hadn't experienced a migraine in about 5 years, but fortunately I recognized the bizarre symptoms. I consider myself lucky that migraines don't manifest with pain for me, but they're definitely debilitating.

/Migraines are weird and manifest differently for different people.

Sounds like that might have been an ocular migraine. They tend to be either pain free or the pain isn't all that severe. Have you ever gotten them where you get the zig-zag patterns in your visual field?

Kind of like the above. First time I had one of those it scared the crap out of me because I'd never heard of ocular migraines & had no idea what was happening.

I have had that happen a few times before but I mostly get the blind spots like the one mentiined above - once had to get an employee read what his record said on my computer because I could not see the spot I was looking at. I could see things in my periphrial vision but would lose it when I tried to actually look at it. Usually I just get the "fireworks" that just sparkle on the outer edges of my vision.

I am lucky - hsve not had a migraine in about one year...I don't wish them on anyone.

Psylence:Mikey1969: enik: You could apply a list like that to any chronic sickness people suffer from. I get stupid comments like those all the time when dealing with asthma.

Except that people recognize asthma as an actual affliction, while they still think migraines are "just headaches", and since we've all had headaches and lived through them, they pretty much act like migraine sufferers are just making it all up at the worst, or at the least are massive drama queens...

I'm glad that in my case, everyone important in my life has seen me get migraines to the point of vomiting and tremors. Now when I tell them, they believe me.

That's how an old roommate of mine discovered that she even had them. She had such bad vomiting one night she tore her stomach lining in some way and started throwing up blood. By the time the drama was over, she discovered that she suffered from migraines and had injectable Imitrex...

I've never gotten a painful migraine, thank goodness, but I have gotten those "silent" migraines episodically, the ones that obscure one's vision with spots and patterns. In my case, it was associated with an untreated case of sleep apnea, and was also accompanied by hypertension (like 165/130 hypertension, resting).

/I know, IANAD, but I thought I'd toss that little data point out there because the ultimate diagnosis was a total surprise to me.

My mother suffers from chronic cluster headaches. As a result and until the start of this year, I've had to help care for her for over fifteen years. When people hear she has cluster headaches, there is sympathy, but people always want to mention having migraines and therefore having some experience with this.

Er, wow.

I get migraines sometimes to the point of being in delirium for a couple days, and I count myself fortunate that I don't get cluster headaches.

Wild Eyed and Wicked:Bathia_Mapes: Forty-Two: The weirdest migraine I had occurred while I was teaching a writing class. I couldn't see things in the center of my field of vision (previous migraines had affected my peripheral vision). The brain does its best to compensate for things it can't see, but when I needed actual details from the blind spots (like, words on a page), my brain couldn't supply the answers. I called on students to read things off the overhead (since I could no longer read them), then I ended class slightly early. I hadn't experienced a migraine in about 5 years, but fortunately I recognized the bizarre symptoms. I consider myself lucky that migraines don't manifest with pain for me, but they're definitely debilitating.

/Migraines are weird and manifest differently for different people.

Sounds like that might have been an ocular migraine. They tend to be either pain free or the pain isn't all that severe. Have you ever gotten them where you get the zig-zag patterns in your visual field?

Kind of like the above. First time I had one of those it scared the crap out of me because I'd never heard of ocular migraines & had no idea what was happening.

I have had that happen a few times before but I mostly get the blind spots like the one mentiined above - once had to get an employee read what his record said on my computer because I could not see the spot I was looking at. I could see things in my periphrial vision but would lose it when I tried to actually look at it. Usually I just get the "fireworks" that just sparkle on the outer edges of my vision.

I am lucky - hsve not had a migraine in about one year...I don't wish them on anyone.

Most times I don't get an aura before a migraine hits, but when I do, I know it's going to be an especially bad one. I have noticed that mine have lessened since I went through menopause. Before that I'd get at least one per month, usually a week before my period began.

I was surprised to hear about migraine induced strokes. A good friend of mine (and frequent migraine sufferer) recently had a stroke. He is in his 30s and in great health, so it seemed to come out of left field. I wondered if the two (migraine and stroke) might be related, and it appears that is at least plausible.

Forty-Two:The weirdest migraine I had occurred while I was teaching a writing class. I couldn't see things in the center of my field of vision (previous migraines had affected my peripheral vision). The brain does its best to compensate for things it can't see, but when I needed actual details from the blind spots (like, words on a page), my brain couldn't supply the answers. I called on students to read things off the overhead (since I could no longer read them), then I ended class slightly early. I hadn't experienced a migraine in about 5 years, but fortunately I recognized the bizarre symptoms. I consider myself lucky that migraines don't manifest with pain for me, but they're definitely debilitating.

/Migraines are weird and manifest differently for different people.

That's how I know my migraines are coming.

I'll be walking around and suddenly "hmm I can SEE the book, but the words are missing."

Or worse: "well it seems that your face has disappeared."

I have 15 minutes once I see the faceless people to get to a dark room. Even thinking about it makes me nauseous and frightened.

I get maybe two a month now, down from two a week about ten years ago. Imetrix is the only thing that helps, but, like others, I feel like Ive been worked over with a bat. Put me in a dark room with a heat pack over my eyes, and Ill be fine eventually. I envision my migraine like grapes in a giant vat of clear liquid, and I scoop them out one at a time, feeling my migraine go away. Eventually Ill fall asleep and wake up hours later, mostly human again.

Jgok:Fabric_Man: The best thing to say is nothing. Just gently usher them into a dark, quiet room with their medicine (if any), and let them ride it out.

This comment is more intelligently-written than that entire article.

Chronic migraines definitely suck, and they're not all genetic. Mine are caused by a non-cancerous lesion in my brain that came from an injury. For the brain surgeons who care, it's in the left frontal lobe in front of and a little above Broca's area.

After a lot of treatment, I'm down to about one migraine a month (a few years ago, it was one a week).

I thought mine were strictly genetic, but it turns out they're actually being caused by hypertention (essential) pressing on the trigeminal nerve. So it's true migraine in the sense that it's neurological (the trigeminal being the largest of the cranial nerve bundles), and it has all the classic symptoms -- prodrome, postrome, crushing headache, scintillating scatoma (I get the dancing toothy rainbow type, the only kind of rainbow I hate), nausea, disorentation, photophobia, sonophobia, severe cramps, stiff joints, hot and cold flashes, tunnel vision, and more, depending on the severity of the attack. I even went blind for a few minutes once, which was just as scary as it sounds. And yes, after years of that I did start to wonder if it was worth it to live with it, so I completely understand why some migraineurs kill themselves. (I even got a greenlight here once mentioning that.)

I got used to the idea, horrible as it was, that I'd suffer some degree from it every single day for the rest of my life, and that became my reality, until I had two attacks that landed me in the hospital. The second was accompanied by other symptms so severe, they weren't sure I was going to make it back out. But it turned out that proper maintenance my essentiali hypertension (most likely caused by a kink in one renal artery) completely controls my migraine. I went from "suffer through every damn day forever" to "can't remember the last headache I've had" in less than two weeks. It was a farking miracle, and changed my life. Possibly even saved it.

born_yesterday:Out of curiosity, are there particular foods that commonly cause migranes?

Because it's a neurological disorder, it's different for everyone. If you do a search on this question, you'll find a few nominal answers, most of them old by this point. Hard cheeses and red wine are commonly offered. But the reality is that it's just different and unique for each migraineur, and we only find out by experience, and sometimes by experiment.

rabidpandabear:pute kisses like a man: HotIgneous Intruder: How about, "HAVE MORE DIET COKE AND COFFEE!"

/Never have met a person who had migraines who also wasn't also a caffeine and/or soda addict.

i don't know anything about medicine, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that caffeine helps migraine sufferers. it helps absolutely everything else.

/ increases breathing and blood flow. also good for people who are having trouble breathing.

You're right. Caffeine is one of the ingredients in some popular anti-migraine meds. For certain people/ types of migraines it can work wonders.

It certainly helped me a lot. Though I have to say, it was specifically *coffee* that worked best, and I don't know why. It doesn't seem strange to me, since there's something like five thousand chemicals in coffee, but I found out from experience that coffee was much better than caffeine alone, and better than any other complex delivery system containing caffeine. And it wasn't the amount, because high-test caffeine didn't do as much, either. It was some combination of chemicals in coffee.

Seriously, there's a trigger point that will help 99% of the time, right in the webbing between the thumb and the index finger. You can almost always find a knot in this, but you actually have to be pretty brutal to get this to work. If you pinch the fark out of this knot, and hold it , you will fell it noticeably reduce in size, and within a few minutes, it will be almost completely gone. Oftentimes, my wife will fell her head throbbing, which is a good sign, it means the blood is flowing freely again. Within half an hour or so, the worst of the migraine is gone.

It's a great solution, but like I said, you have to work that thing hardcore... It doesn't help when my wife has the DEFCON 1 migraines, but it's amazing how well it works. Worst part about migraines is identifying the triggers, they could be absolutely anything, it seems that lack of sleep is a pretty common factor for her. Luckily we haven't had to try an elimination diet, that shiat can take forever, trying to nail downa specific food item that causes them.

Again, it's different for everyone. And believe me when I tell you that every migraineur has tried everything they've ever heard of, even stupid-sounding things. The misery is so excruciating that I would have happily thrust a wet finger into a light socket, had I any notion that it might possibly help. The trick you describe did help me, a little, sometimes, for a bit; not enough to make any meaningful difference. What also 'helped' for me was deliberately inducing an ice cream headache: while normally painful, under migraine it provided a few blessed seconds of relief -- only a few, but the relief was like an orgasm.

This "99%" crap is just that, I'm sorry. I'm happy for those it helps, really. But it didn't help me, and if it really did help 99% of the time, we'd all know about it. Hell, someone would have gotten a Nobel for it by now. I'd whittle it for them myself. With my teeth.

Hack Patooey:I get maybe two a month now, down from two a week about ten years ago. Imetrix is the only thing that helps, but, like others, I feel like Ive been worked over with a bat. Put me in a dark room with a heat pack over my eyes, and Ill be fine eventually. I envision my migraine like grapes in a giant vat of clear liquid, and I scoop them out one at a time, feeling my migraine go away. Eventually Ill fall asleep and wake up hours later, mostly human again.

Blah

I find that heat works better than an ice pack, too. I tend to situate a recliner right beside the microwave. Then, I fold a damp washcloth in half, roll it up, and microwave for 30 seconds. Lay back in the recliner for those seconds. Then, I fetch the cloth, put it over my face, and breathe deeply and slowly until it cools off. Repeat.

INTERTRON:Hack Patooey: I get maybe two a month now, down from two a week about ten years ago. Imetrix is the only thing that helps, but, like others, I feel like Ive been worked over with a bat. Put me in a dark room with a heat pack over my eyes, and Ill be fine eventually. I envision my migraine like grapes in a giant vat of clear liquid, and I scoop them out one at a time, feeling my migraine go away. Eventually Ill fall asleep and wake up hours later, mostly human again.

Blah

I find that heat works better than an ice pack, too. I tend to situate a recliner right beside the microwave. Then, I fold a damp washcloth in half, roll it up, and microwave for 30 seconds. Lay back in the recliner for those seconds. Then, I fetch the cloth, put it over my face, and breathe deeply and slowly until it cools off. Repeat.

As you can see, I don't have a heat pack.

Heat works for me as well. if you don't have a hot pack you can make yourself a rice sock. Get a clean sock, dump enough rice in it to fill up about half of the part of the sock where your foot would sit. Tie the top of the sock into a knot and throw in the microwave for 45 seconds to a minute. Works great for muscle aches too.

I read about something new that can cure Migraine or Have you tried this? It worked for a friend of mine. While Migraineurs want to know that our loved ones are thinking about us and want to help us, the chance that you have stumbled upon a miraculous treatment or "cure" that our specialists - or we who have suffered terribly with this disease - have not, is miniscule beyond measure.

What bullshiat. If something actually worked for someone else, there's a chance it COULD work for you. Even if that chance is miniscule (and it's NOT "miniscule beyond measure") it could be worth a shot. You're free to ignore it.

Psylence:RivenSilver: The best thing you can say to them is "Here's some LSD."

Yea... that and mushrooms. Despite the fact that both are easily available I just cannot bring myself to try it out when I have a migraine. The thought of being trapped in a psychedelic migraine hell is just too much.. I already pray for death when I have a migraine.

Same here. Although I found that pot (psychoactive, but not psychedelic) seemed to help, so I had some kind bud that I kept around strictly for medicinal use. (Yes, really.) The catch was that it took a good deal more than it would normally take to get me high; I usually wouldn't actually get high, but a couple times, I did, and that wasn't a whole lot of fun in that condition, I have to say.

Mikey1969:enik: You could apply a list like that to any chronic sickness people suffer from. I get stupid comments like those all the time when dealing with asthma.

Except that people recognize asthma as an actual affliction, while they still think migraines are "just headaches", and since we've all had headaches and lived through them, they pretty much act like migraine sufferers are just making it all up at the worst, or at the least are massive drama queens...

That's pretty much the size of it, yeah. People just assume that if it was a really serious malady, it would either manifest itself in obvious ways (lesions or something), or they would already know that, since people tend to assume that they already know everything that's important for them to. (Which is why it's so damn hard to educate people, because they're ignorant of their own ignorance, and they're mostly okay with that. -- "If lesbians were really suffering under our laws, someone would have told me that already!") Things like being gay and a migraineur can go a long way towards educating you about your own ignorance and others'.

Mister Peejay:Mikey1969:Except that people recognize asthma as an actual affliction, while they still think migraines are "just headaches", and since we've all had headaches and lived through them, they pretty much act like migraine sufferers are just making it all up at the worst, or at the least are massive drama queens...

Which is why there's a push to stop calling them "migraine headaches".

I'd like to say that they're closer to siezures than headaches, because there's a whole lot of misfiring going on, but at the same time, I don't, because I want to keep my driver's license. I'm not willing to lose my career over semantics.

Yep. Some of the same drugs used for epilepsy are also used for migraine. I had a friend who has epilepsy, and she shared some of her drugs with me, and it helped a lot of the time. And I also came to recognise that both follow a neurological cascade process that I was mostly aware of. But yeah, I don't want to lose my driver's license of this. Though migraine can be severe enough to keep me off the road, very few migraineurs get onset so rapid that it would ever present a road hazard.

radiobiz:I hate it when people tell me they "get migraines too!" when they don't. "Oh, but just take a couple Advil and you'll be fine!" I could have smacked that lady but I was too busy trying not to vomit all over the drug store counter from the spinning.

Last time someone told me that while I was having a migraine, I just said fark it and let the puke fountain out of my mouth all over them. If there's one thing that gets the message across properly, it's puking.

Sylvia_Bandersnatch:This "99%" crap is just that, I'm sorry. I'm happy for those it helps, really. But it didn't help me, and if it really did help 99% of the time, we'd all know about it. Hell, someone would have gotten a Nobel for it by now. I'd whittle it for them myself. With my teeth

Actually, many doctors DO know about it, I or my wife has mentioned it to different doctors, at different times before, and their response has been positive, reinforcing, and always affirming that it is a known pressure point that causes relief for migraines.

But that doesn't matter anyway, since you want to be a prick, no matter what. If you don't know about it, it obviously doesn't exist, you know the only "real" solutions, yadda, yadda, yadda. I know how it goes. That's cool though, I don't know you, so I don't give two farks what you think about migraine relief. Make sure that you don't lower yourself t having someone try it as a relief agent some day, wouldn't want it to turn out to work and make you look like a bitter fool.

Wild Eyed and Wicked:Bathia_Mapes: Forty-Two: The weirdest migraine I had occurred while I was teaching a writing class. I couldn't see things in the center of my field of vision (previous migraines had affected my peripheral vision). The brain does its best to compensate for things it can't see, but when I needed actual details from the blind spots (like, words on a page), my brain couldn't supply the answers. I called on students to read things off the overhead (since I could no longer read them), then I ended class slightly early. I hadn't experienced a migraine in about 5 years, but fortunately I recognized the bizarre symptoms. I consider myself lucky that migraines don't manifest with pain for me, but they're definitely debilitating.

/Migraines are weird and manifest differently for different people.

Sounds like that might have been an ocular migraine. They tend to be either pain free or the pain isn't all that severe. Have you ever gotten them where you get the zig-zag patterns in your visual field?

Kind of like the above. First time I had one of those it scared the crap out of me because I'd never heard of ocular migraines & had no idea what was happening.

I have had that happen a few times before but I mostly get the blind spots like the one mentiined above - once had to get an employee read what his record said on my computer because I could not see the spot I was looking at. I could see things in my periphrial vision but would lose it when I tried to actually look at it. Usually I just get the "fireworks" that just sparkle on the outer edges of my vision.

I am lucky - hsve not had a migraine in about one year...I don't wish them on anyone.

Do the 'fireworks' look anything like this? If so, that's scatoma, a common visual aura symptom. Mine look more like this, though this is a poor representation. (I saw a better one once, but I'm not finding it now.) They're also usually nearer the centre of my vision, so while I'm not 'blind' there when it happens, I'm often unable to make out details of what I'm looking at, which makes it difficult or impossible to read.

Wait, I found the better ones, on this page. Mine are most often similar to the beach scene (third one down).